October 21, 2019
OEC Response to the HB 6 Referendum Announcement
Columbus, OH — With the announcement from the Citizens Against Corporate Bailouts that their campaign did not have enough signatures to meet the constitutional requirement to initiate a referendum of Ohio House Bill 6, the following statement can be attributed in full or in part to Heather Taylor-Miesle, Executive Director of the Ohio Environmental Council:
“With hundreds of thousands of signatures collected in just over 50 days, far less than the 90 days provided by the Ohio constitution, it is clear that there is an overwhelming demand from Ohioans that our state’s elected leaders act on climate, restore our renewable energy standards, and ensure that the air we breathe is not polluted.
“Due to the unprecedented attack on our democratic right to engage in a referendum process, outright racist attacks, and a bad process that sets up citizens to fail, it is clear that corporations like FirstEnergy and their political allies care only about profits and little about the health, pocketbooks, and well-being of Ohioans. We have never seen such outrageous actions to thwart our constitutional rights to allow citizens to hold their government accountable.
“While this is a setback to Ohio’s fight against climate change, we will continue to organize, hold lawmakers accountable, and work to pass solutions at the local, state, and national levels so that current and future generations know that we did all we could to mitigate the climate crisis that looms.”